Indians are turning to genetics to assess likelihood of falling victim to diseases

BANGALORE: Juggling a hectic career as a software professional with the demands of bringing up her child left Deepa (second name withheld to protect identity) with little time for personal health concerns, until the day a colleague at work collapsed due to a heart attack. Deeply disturbed by the incident, she was determined to find out the chances of suffering a similar fate.

"I used to spend 8-10 hours in front of the computer, and after this incident I realised that tracking my own health risk was crucial," says the 34-year-old, who set about trying to find an affordable personal genomic assessment.

Her search led to Xcode, a Chennai-based startup that genetically tests saliva to determine a person's tendency to develop certain illnesses and suggest preventive healthcare measures. After her screening, Deepa was given a customised exercise regimen and told to follow a diet best suited for her genetic type.

A similar customised solution was offered to 34-year-old marketing consultant Aryan, who was keen to protect himself from the ravages of a work schedule that included constant travel and poor eating habits. Aryan's wakeup call was his father's stroke, which made him reflect on his own unhealthy lifestyle and the possible remedies.

Both Deepa and Aryan are part of a small but growing number of Indians having their genetic makeup mapped through a simple test that costs less than Rs 10,000. They are turning to genetics to assess the likelihood of falling victim to a range of conditions from diabetes and cardiac disease to baldness and obesity.

"In future, the technology even has potential for detecting indicators of personal traits like impulsive shopping, addiction and having a strong liking for those red Jimmy Choo stilettos," says Saleem Mohammed, co-founder of Xcode Life Sciences.

Xcode, set up in 2010, combines genetic assessment with a personalised healthcare regimen for its clients, based on test results.

"This differentiates us from other similar service providers who map a person's preponderance to a specific disease type alone," says Mohammed, who trained at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before he returned to India and found that his mother had developed diabetes.

Realising that illnesses could be predicted and managed better, Mohammed, who was working at multinational seed firm Monsanto, decided to quit his job and build a technology startup in the personal genomics space. He approached the Vellore Institute of Technology to incubate his idea and was introduced to R Narayanan, an angel investor who backed the fledgling venture with seed money of $250,000 (Rs 1.4 crore).

"This is an opportunity in the direct-to-consumer space and is a totally scalable business" says Narayanan, who has been a senior executive at Coca-Cola and Nestle.

Xcode, which was incubated for two years, launched its services last month and has already bagged over 50 customers, mainly in the age group of 25-55 years.

Mohammed expects Xcode's value-added services, such as personalised nutrition and fitness programmes for lifestyle disorders, and its low-cost business model, to set it apart from competitors.

In Delhi, biotechnology startup NutraGene offers similar services to predict conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, breast cancer, osteoporosis and baldness. NutraGene has also developed CanSeq, a service that allows doctors to predict which drugs might work and which won't for cancer patients, according to its founder Anubhav Anusha. NutraGene, which launched its service in 2011, is drawing customers from smaller cities such as Bhopal and Patna as well.

Xcode's Mohammed, who estimates that the potential of the genomic testing market in India to be about $1 billion, hopes to bring down costs by half in the coming months. His startup is also mentored by industry experts like S Ramaswamy, CEO of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms, who thinks the rising demand for preventive healthcare makes personal genomics an attractive bet.

"Indians are realising that prevention is better than cure," he says. At Xcode, consumers place orders through the Web, after which a specialised kit is shipped to them. Using the kit, they courier their saliva to the lab for assessment. The sample is analysed by gene-mapping equipment that interpret the data to identify an individual's propensity to develop a specific disease.

A personalised report is mailed back to the customer in four weeks. The startup also provides clients with the facility to store medical information on the Internet for 49 years. A customer can access this through a password from any part of the world. Vijay Chandru, CEO of bioinformatics firm Strand Life Sciences, believes a growing market like India offers almost unlimited scope for personal genomics.

"Technology is getting easier, experimentation is not hard; the difference is in interpreting the data," he said.